Redstar Fancy Dress

We've all witnessed the classic vision of a truly old-school UK hen party: that faintly terrifying mix of aggressively 'refreshed' best pals, work colleagues and groom's sisters ripping like an alcopop-chugging tornado through bar after bar in the wake of an L-plated, tinsel-winged bride-to-be. And we've all commented – usually while cowering in fear of being smacked around the chops with a giant inflatable phallus – on how tackily depressing the whole archaic pantomime can look from a distance.

In recent years, we've definitely detected that celebrities have started upping their game in the fancy dress stakes (vampire pun only partly intended). Here are a few we spotted that we liked. Or, er, didn't. Question is, can you do better? Answer: of course you can.

There's an old adage that states 'if something can go wrong, it usually will'. This seems to be more true than ever on wedding days – the one time you pretty much need everything to run like clockwork, you can more or less guarantee that it won't. A quick Google search revealed that the web is rife with cringeworthy tales of 'perfect day' failures – here are a few of the common ones we found, in the hope they'll help you put a few contingency measures in place should they happen to you...

So you're planning to dress up in outlandish costumes and visit multiple watering holes in an evening – simple, right? Well, yes: TOO simple, if you ask us. When it comes to organising a classic fancy dress pub crawl, there's nothing quite like a little bit of over-complication to get things warmed up. Here, in no particular order, are 15 additional rules, tips and challenges that we've found can add an extra frisson to your pub crawl proceedings...

Planning a hen do can be inordinately tricky, especially the bit about trying to make it feel memorable and unique without charging everyone hundreds of quid to take part. With that in mind, here are a few ideas for quick and low-cost ways to create brilliant bonding experiences - you can squeeze more than one of them into an afternoon or evening...and, of course, they'll all be vastly improved by incorporating fancy dress into the action!

1. ABC – anything but cups! As you might already have guessed, the idea of this party extra is that your guests are allowed to bring anything they like with them to use as a drinking vessel...as long as it isn't a cup or glass in any traditional sense. Spot prizes for the most impractical or imaginative solutions will encourage outside-the-box thinking here. (Good tip 1: have a decent mop on hand – some spillage is fairly inevitable if people are really pushing the envelope. Good tip 2: don't use an envelope.)